Chapter 13
“I don’t see what is to be done about it,” Dr. Henry said, pausing in his pacing to fan his face with his hat. “Apart from telling the men to check before they block up any more doors.”
“I doubt it was a local worker,” Alexander said, his mouth barely moving.
His anger was just barely in check. Saffron sat at one of the tables on the other side of the tent, wrapped tightly in her jacket and staring somewhat blankly at the drink in her hand.
He’d never seen her in shock like this, not even after being kidnapped and concussed, finding him covered in blood, or discovering a dead body.
“Neill said Clark told the locals they’d taken care of blocking it up for lunch. ”
Dr. Henry grunted. “Sounds like a bad bit of luck. But this … reaction, Ashton.” He glanced over at Saffron.
Alexander silently cursed. To someone who’d never experienced shock or panic attacks, he knew exactly what her reaction would look like.
“I was assured that Everleigh could put up with danger, Ashton,” Dr. Henry said.
“We haven’t the time to play nanny to anyone!
” He glanced around them, then added in an undertone, “Another item has gone missing. That bit of chain Templeton and I dug out of the wall at 8C a few days ago. I don’t know where the devil it’s gone, and Hayrettin has started asking questions.
That’s got to take priority, not your team’s hysterics! You need to get your woman in hand.”
“Lawrence.”
Dr. Henry grimaced. They both turned to the white-clad woman where she stood just outside the tent, her eyes as sharp and cold as her voice.
“Cynthia!” Henry said, striding into the sun and offering her his arm. “I didn’t know you’d be coming for lunch.”
Alexander took that as his excuse to leave. He went to Saffron.
Saffron eventually drank the tea in her glass and told him what happened, leaving unsaid why she was so shaken. Her voice was low, quiet enough the crew couldn’t hear her. She didn’t name Clark as the culprit, but Alexander was sure he was at the top of her suspect list. After the tea, she stood.
Alexander had opened his mouth to suggest she sit and rest, or at least eat something, but the set of her mouth told him he was going to be ignored. He followed her to where the Henrys stood. The expression of disdain on Mrs. Henry’s face disappeared as she asked Saffron how the morning had gone.
“Well, thank you.” Saffron gave Mrs. Henry a strained smile, nodded to Dr. Henry, and walked away.
Mrs. Henry rounded on Dr. Henry again. “Honestly, Lawrence, it wouldn’t kill you to exercise an iota of empathy—”
“This is the field,” he exclaimed. “This isn’t the place for empathy. If the girl can’t hack it—”
Alexander walked away, his head buzzing with frustration. If Dr. Henry wasn’t going to do something about Clark’s antics, which grew more and more dangerous by the moment, he would have to do something about it himself.
That night at the hotel, after bathing and dressing, Saffron sat staring into the vanity mirror in her room, the sounds of the growing party downstairs floating in through her window.
The last thing she wanted to do was give Clark yet another reason to poke fun at her, but a close second was going down to dinner.
She’d been too overcome with shock after Alexander helped her out of the storeroom to realize how she must have looked to the crew.
Clark had been kind enough to ask her many times if she was well and what he could do to make her experience at the site less harrowing.
She’d finally snapped, and with tears burning her eyes, had told him, “Try leaving me alone. That might help.”
To which he, of course, replied with false concern, “But you were left alone, Miss Everleigh, that’s the problem.”
Martin Neill had apologized to her a dozen times. Mrs. Henry had sought her out at the site, asking again about how her work was progressing, perhaps in an effort to distract her from the incident, though it only made her feel stupid yet again. And Alexander …
She’d only ever experienced one attack of panic before, and that had also ended with her in Alexander’s arms. She was grateful he’d been there to find her again, but it didn’t ease her stinging irritation with how curtly he treated Martin.
Yes, he had said she was babysitting Martin, but it was clear Alexander held Martin partially responsible for her getting trapped in the storeroom, which he would not have had he not considered Martin to be her watcher.
She felt at odds with everyone. But it was time for dinner, and she had to make an appearance.
She rose and smoothed her dress, a dark green with black embroidery, smart and comfortable. Elizabeth would tell her to go out and give her colleagues something real to talk about. She was afraid she already had, and none of it flattering.
She frowned at her reflection before stepping into the hallway.
The quiet voice behind her made her jump. “How are you feeling?”
Saffron turned and glared at her fiancé, who clearly didn’t know he was still on her wrong side. “Fine, thank you.”
Alexander didn’t reply, simply offered her his arm, and they made their way to the multicolored staircase.
They stepped down, Saffron’s ire ebbing away slightly at the sight of the twinkling lights through the mosaic globes above.
She was just about to turn to Alexander and be pleasant when he put a hand over hers on his arm and said quietly, “I wanted you to know that I’m going to speak to Clark after dinner. ”
“No,” Saffron said, “don’t, Alexander.”
He frowned. “I can’t not say anything.”
“Yes, you can. I don’t have any proof he’s done anything to me.
” Nothing she could make a real, formal complaint of, anyway.
The snake incident had already been dismissed by Dr. Henry and everyone else as a harmless prank, and she couldn’t prove Clark had intentionally left her in the storeroom or drugged her champagne.
It was likely to only make matters worse for her if she did put up a fuss about Clark. “He won’t listen, anyway.”
Saffron was surprised to see Alexander’s expression darken slightly, his mouth thinning to a line. “He will listen. I’m his supervisor for the next few weeks.”
She withheld an impatient sigh. “He doesn’t see you as his supervisor. He’ll assume I sent you after him. It’ll just make it worse.”
“Saffron, he trapped you in a dark hole that might have collapsed on you. I have to say something.”
They’d reached the bottom of the stairs. With a firm tone she hoped didn’t give away her misgivings, she said, “I do not want you to speak to him about it. Please, don’t say anything.”
She walked toward the dining room without giving him a chance to reply. She knew his heart was in the right place, but he didn’t understand. She couldn’t rely on others to stand up for her. On the expedition, she had to be self-sufficient if she was ever going to win respect on her own.
Dinner was uncomfortable, but Saffron managed to get through it without sinking into her chair in the hopes of disappearing.
As they had several evenings thus far, the Turkish officials had joined their party, and Saffron was invited, due to Alexander’s position, to dine with them, the Henrys, and the Demirels.
There was much talk of the potential discoveries in the new storeroom, and Saffron appreciated that neither of the Henrys gave her sideways glances when it came up.
The only sticky point was when Hayrettin mentioned summoning historians from Istanbul University to examine the recent finds, and Dr. Henry was so abruptly negative in response that Mrs. Henry had to jump in to firmly steer the conversation into friendlier waters.
When the party broke up to join the rest of the crew, or those present at the hotel that evening, Saffron found Mrs. Henry in a chair outside in the dark garden, smoking a cigarette.
“I have been thinking about what you said, Mrs. Henry,” Saffron said, sitting in the chair at Mrs. Henry’s side.
The other woman faced her, face softly illuminated by the light from the open windows, looking mildly interested.
“Our conversation the other day has been bothering me. I certainly do not think of you as someone unable to converse about my work and science. Or any topic, really. In fact, I admire how you can speak so easily to anyone. A crew member, or the officials. I am …” She exhaled, feeling foolish, but determined. “I have often been considered boring.”
“Boring?” Mrs. Henry repeated, looking genuinely surprised. “My dear, with your record of mischief, I doubt anyone could consider you boring. You’ve solved crimes and confronted criminals. Been poisoned yourself. From reading your expedition application alone, I could never consider you boring.”
Heat crept into her face. “I have been involved with the solving of crimes,” she said quietly.
“But I do not tend to bring it up in conversation. And those experiences have all been rather recent. I mean, I have been told my interests are boring. Plants are well and good for most ladies, if they are blooming in a pot or vase, but it is rather unusual for another woman, one not studying at the U, to be genuinely interested in my work. I have been dismissed a good deal more than listened to, and I fear I’ve lost my nerve for trying. ”
The cynical smile Saffron remembered from her first introduction to Mrs. Henry formed on her perfectly made-up face.
“Miss Everleigh, I fear you must recover it. Allow me to let you in on a secret.” She did not lean forward, but she did drop her voice lower.
“Lawrence is a middling researcher, at best. I have read all his papers and I have never been particularly impressed with his discoveries. But do you know who has been published in the most journals, and lead the most expeditions in his department? It is Lawrence. He has been given opportunities—and taken them, I would never deny—because those who matter at the university and in the academic world do not care about the work.” She tutted at Saffron’s dismay.
“They do not, and you are aware of it. They care about who puts on the best show. Yes, names on papers are important, but those who book conferences and are interviewed by newspapers and magazines or even on the radio are the people who will inspire the donors and convince them to pass over their funds. That is what they care about. Personality.” She flicked ash from her ignored cigarette and slipped it between her lips.
With smoke slithering from her mouth, she said, “And you need to think about how you present yourself. Constantly. I may not be a donor myself, but I know nearly all of them. If I were to go to lunch with Lord Cavendish or Lady Agatha Leister and they asked me where they might put their next donation, I would have nothing to say about the work of Saffron Everleigh.” She took another drag from her cigarette.
Her eyes glittered as she watched Saffron struggle to come up with a response.
“If you want success, you must work for it. If you spend all your time crafting your papers and none on crafting yourself, you’ll never truly have it. ”
Saffron swallowed, feeling every single one of Mrs. Henry’s words. “You are right.”
Mrs. Henry’s brows arched sardonically, and she took another drag from her cigarette, letting Saffron sit in uncomfortable silence.
Unsure if she was answering the unspoken question, Saffron said, “I hope that by studying the preserved plants from the agora, I might get a sense of how the uses of certain plants changed over time and how their use might have influenced the evolution of the plants themselves through cultivation.”
“Oh, yes?” Mrs. Henry sounded bored.
“Medicinal plants are often gathered under a single umbrella,” Saffron ventured, “but the useful qualities of these species are often double-edged swords. Paracelsus said, Dosis sola facit venenum.”
Mrs. Henry’s brow puckered, then smoothed as she smiled. “Only the dose makes the poison.”
Saffron nodded. “Nearly all the plants I’ve studied, the poisonous ones, are also used as medicines. I aspire to discovering when they shifted from solely dangerous to useful.”
Mrs. Henry rose to her feet. “A good start, Miss Everleigh.”
She wafted away, trailing smoke into the darkness in the direction of the hotel’s lobby, leaving Saffron feeling at once vindicated and belittled. It was a curious feeling, but at least it was invigorating. Mrs. Henry made her feel as if she had something to prove, but also that she could prove it.